Ceremony
by Sullen Siren
Summary: Giles speaks at Buffy's memorial.  Post-Gift.  On the sappy side of the spectrum.


Title: Ceremony   
Author: Adena/Sullen_Siren adena@atlantic.net   
Distribution: Be my guest, just let me know, 'kay?   
Disclaimer: I don't own Giles, Buffy, or any of the rest of the happy scrappy pups. I do however   
own a large, very badly trained Great Dane. And if you sue me, you'll have to take her because I   
won't be able to afford to feed her. So consider yourself warned. She drools. And chews (on   
neighbors).   
Notes: Written after the premier of Buffy's sixth season, when the reality of Anthony Stewart   
Head's bon voyage hit home. Oh how I'll miss him. Thanks to the talented Yasminke for a great   
Beta. Trust me, it reads much better now than it did before she gave it some help. If there are   
any mistakes here, it's probably because I forgot to change them, not because she didn't catch   
them.   
Spoilers: Through the Gift is fair game, though it's really only the Gift that's spoiled.   
Timeline: Post-Gift.   
Summary: Giles speaks at Buffy's memorial.   
Feedback: Oh goodness yes! Please! I'm very needy.   
  
  
It was a big funeral. They hadn't meant it to be. They'd tried to keep it quiet, just for them   
and the few who might have understood what it had been like, who had understood what she was,   
even if they couldn't describe her. But word spreads fast in small towns, even this one. Maybe   
especially this one. They'd kept it to themselves at least, the humans who came to mourn,   
remember and thank. Despite the numbers of them who gathered and the whispered word that   
had spread like a forest fire through the town she'd protected, somehow they'd kept it from the   
monsters.   
  
It troubled him that in a world where nothing had interceded to keep a hero from her   
death, someone had ensured that the evil doers did not hear about it. He preferred to think of it   
as simple human prudence, to think that all those here had spoken in hushed tones and avoided   
dark allies during their conversations. He suspected he was kidding himself, but he didn't care. It   
was preferable to believe the lie than to accept the alternative.   
  
They shouldn't have had it at all. He'd known that. They all had. Better to bury her under   
a false name, without ceremony or mourning. But they couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. He   
couldn't bring himself to deny her the ceremony, or to deny himself the comfort of knowing she'd   
be remembered, if only by a cold gravestone. They could only keep it secret for so long;   
rationally he knew that. Someone would find out, word would spread. And the evil would come   
in droves. He wondered how he would react the first time he saw her grave defiled. He wasn't   
sure what he'd do, and that unsettled him. He was not an unpredictable man or, rather, he hadn't   
been for a long time. He took comfort in his practicality, solace in his routine. He knew how his   
brain and body would react to almost any situation he faced. Or , rather, he thought he did.   
These last few days had changed all that.   
  
He wondered if he would have accepted the position if he had known. If he'd been told   
how it would play out, how much he would care, how he would watch her plummet and die. If   
he'd been told how it would be, how much he would care, how he would watch her die. If he had   
known all that, would he still have come? Would he still have been her Watcher, her replacement   
father, her friend? He liked to think he would, that he would have had the strength to do so. He   
was not a weak man. But he wasn't certain. Not anymore. He was so unsure now, at odds with   
the world and with himself.   
  
It was beginning. The soft murmur of voices fading away as people settled into seats, a   
black sea of people looking up at them with eyes that glimmered with tears and sympathy. He   
recognized many of them. Some weren't there that he had expected to see, but it didn't occur to   
him to miss them. It registered only as an oddity, an unexpected twist. He looked out at them,   
the gathered masses, and in his mind they became one entity. Regret. That's all they were,   
dressed in their black cloth of mourning. They were the body of Regret, come to remember what   
they lamented losing, not knowing, not acknowledging, not really seeing. They were Regret, but   
he was not. He had seen, he had known, he had loved. He was not Regret, he was Sorrow, and   
they weren't the same thing at all.   
  
He spared a glance for the others who graced the raised stage with him. There was the   
stern- faced priest, the same one who had buried her mother. And they were there as well. Those   
who wore Sorrow's other faces. The ones who truly understood what they were burying, as he   
did. They were to speak, all of them. Say goodbye. Remember. He hadn't written a speech.   
He'd tried. It never came out right. He felt her peering over his shoulder, shaking her head at the   
words he wrote down. Words that didn't come close to appropriate, or even adequate.   
  
He was becoming hopelessly maudlin in his old age. He knew what he wanted to say, but   
it wouldn't come out. Instead, the thoughts spinning through his head were the selfsame stuffs he   
derided at the funerals he attended in his youth, before he came here. Empty phrases of missing,   
longing and the greater Truth. Beautiful nonsense he believed useless then, and to some extent   
still did. She was worthy of better, but poetic nonsense was all that he could think of. She'd have   
hated it, of that he was certain. She wouldn't have said anything, because her tact surfaced when   
he least expected it and most needed it. But such words didn't suit her. She'd been a plain words   
woman, though she'd often wrapped it in fancy witticism. She deserved the same from him.   
  
He was to go first. They'd decided that, and he'd gone along with it because he was older   
and wiser and too tired to argue. It took immense effort for him to lift his attention from his own   
thoughts and focus on the old man's words. The priest spoke phrases that he'd said so often they   
tumbled from his lips smoothly, lacking any meaning or understanding of what he was bidding   
farewell to. The man was done too quickly. It was his turn.   
  
Some corner of his mind was amused at the thoughts that tumbled through it while he   
desperately searched for the right thing to say. Seconds slowed to hours as he noticed how   
loosely his jacket hung on his frame. It had been a tad large a scant few weeks or so ago, when   
he'd worn it to another funeral. But now it hung down loosely from his shoulders and in straight   
lines down his torso. He'd lost weight during it all, without knowing it. He'd read somewhere   
that getting fat was a privilege of middle age. It seemed he'd missed out on that.   
  
He stepped to the podium where a microphone jutted up garishly, waiting for him. The   
faces of Regret stared up at him in silent reverence, waiting for Sorrow's words. God, he needed   
a drink. Or a dozen. He couldn't think straight, he could only think in spirals and circles that led   
him back to the words he didn't want to say, and the thoughts he didn't want to think. She lay in a   
dark box behind him, its lid closed. It didn't matter. He knew what she looked like. He didn't   
think she'd liked the dress they chose for her to wear. He hadn't said anything about it. After all,   
what did he know? He was a skinny old man who thought in poetic clich‚s when they needed his   
long winded eloquence the most. What did he know about dressing a girl who'd never worn black   
dresses that went past her knee until she died and they chose for her? He really should have said   
something.   
  
She was behind him in a box, and he was alone. And as he cleared his throat and shuffled   
the blank paper in front of him, as if searching for the words he'd never written on them, he   
realized that he was alone. She wasn't there. She wasn't looking over his shoulder, frowning at   
the words he planned to use to remember her. She was gone. She wouldn't hear. And the words   
he'd sought suddenly came out and made themselves known.   
  
His shoulders straightened, his audience separated and became people again. He spoke to   
them, to himself, and to those who breathed behind him. "Buffy Summers was not perfect. She   
was flawed and impure and wholly human. We thought to remember her alone, those who knew   
her best. But we'd forgotten who she was. We'd forgotten the lives she touched. We'd forgotten   
the pieces of her that you held in your hearts. Many of you, probably even most of you, barely   
knew her at all. She was a face atop the hero who pulled you out of a darkness you couldn't face.   
And you come to say thank you, goodbye, and to try to understand what she was. But you   
cannot. I knew her better than almost anyone, and I will never understand what she was. I   
owned a piece of her, and each of you did the same. But she still belonged to herself, and that's   
what was most astonishing about her. You all, who saw so little, will remember the moment, the   
life she saved. We who were her friends, family and allies will remember her flaws, her strengths,   
her mistakes. We remember her humanity, and we mourn the girl, not the legacy."   
  
He paused for a moment, words on his tongue waiting to escape. He chose carefully and   
continued. "We are here to remember. Buffy is gone. She's not here. When we chose to have   
this ceremony, we wanted it because we told ourselves she would have wanted it. We lied. She's   
gone, and this isn't for her. It's for us. This is our goodbye. Buffy wouldn't have liked what I'm   
going to say, because thought of herself as a human and a girl and no one likes to think of   
themselves as what they truly are. I'm not going to tell you of her sacrifices, her heroism, her   
beauty, her honesty, or her bravery. You know all of that. It's why you came. You already   
remember, and so do we. I'm going to talk about her humanity. Because when the rest was all   
weighed and measured, simple human life was what she treasured the most, and had to work the   
hardest to maintain. Friends, family, idle conversations, and trips to shopping malls I wouldn't be   
caught dead in were all important to her. Some as important to her as the heroism you remember,   
some not, and some far more important in her eyes. The Buffy I want us to remember wasn't a   
hero. That Buffy is already there, and unforgettable. The Buffy I give to you to remember is the   
one most of you never met. Just a girl living her life."   
  
He went on for some time, the words spinning easily. At times he laughed, others he   
frowned, and more than once tears welled up in his eyes. But his voice remained steady. He   
spoke of first meetings and a rebellious child-woman. He talked of quiet times and the girl who'd   
become his daughter. He remembered moments he'd thought he'd forgotten. He said nothing of   
stakes and demons and monsters. They were incidental in this story. This was a story of growing   
up, and of love. His audience laughed, and frowned, and cried with him, and those who breathed   
behind him felt each word in new ways, remembering as he did, and seeing new moments they   
hadn't shared.   
  
When finally the words faded, he stopped. There was a smile on his face, and he reached   
one hand up to push on his glasses in an oddly studied gesture. "I once told her that she was   
everything I could have hoped for. But I lied. The truth is I never dared imagine something as   
pure and honest as she. She asked me once, during a dark time in all of our lives, to lie to her.   
To tell her that life is always simple. And I did. But she didn't believe me. Buffy believed in   
truth, and her deepest truth was her heart. She followed wherever it led, and somehow it led her,   
and us here. I can't say that I wish things weren't different. But I can say that her heart was a   
thing of wonder, and I respect the path it led her down. She followed her heart always. And that   
is the greatest compliment I can give her."   
  
He stepped away from the podium as uncertain applause arose. It was out of place at a   
funeral, but somehow it seemed appropriate. He raised his eyes to the window. They were   
covered for the sake of some whom Dawn had said should be allowed to come. But faint rays of   
sunlight peeked through. He looked at the faint light and smiled. She'd spent much of her time in   
the darkness, fulfilling her destiny, doing her duty. But despite what Fate had decreed, she had   
been a child of the sunlight. And in that faint glimpse of sunlight, he bid her farewell. He   
returned to his seat, never glancing at the great dark box. It had no interest for him. She wasn't   
there. She had never been there. She was free. And in a way, so was he. The chains of a   
Watcher had held him as closely as the Slayer's had held her. But those were gone now.   
  
There's such a thing as too much freedom. He'd loved his chains, and missed their weight   
and their meaning. But he would go back, be something more than what he'd been again. It was   
time to move on.   
  
As he sat, he felt at peace. And around him, the ceremony went on. He wished those who   
spoke after him would see what he had. This wasn't hers, it was theirs. He prayed they'd use it   
well.


End file.
